Seeds of Respect
by showyoursmile
Summary: Sephiroth did not respect many people, but he did respect Professor Gast. This is a brief moment between Gast and three-year-old Sephiroth, meeting for the first time in the Shinra science department.


Although Gast Faremis had all the reason in the world to see 'brilliant success' when he looked at the young boy, he mostly felt that the child was awfully young to be undergoing experiments. It was for the betterment of their Cetra research - after all, there was no telling what they could discover, injecting the cells of Jenova into a still-developing human child - but something about it struck a strange chord in him, even if the study of Jenova was his pet project. What Hojo had done to his unborn child, Gast couldn't see himself risking on his own hypothetical (though admittedly nonexistent) child...but in more ways than that, he was not like his subordinate.

He felt a sort of fondness for the boy when he looked at him, though, with his tiny shock of silver hair and almost alarmingly green eyes. He had seen Sephiroth, never much spoken to the boy, but it triggered the part of him that _would_ like to be a father someday. Maybe when his research reached some sort of resolution (or at least lowered a few notches)...

"Hello there, Sephiroth," he said kindly to the boy, who was standing only a few feet away by a stool, watching Gast with unreadable eyes. Setting down his clipboard, he walked over and crouched down to eye level, a warm smile on his face. "Did Hojo leave you in here?"

Sephiroth nodded, eyes never leaving Gast's face.

"Well, wouldn't want to leave you bored, now would we? Would you like to see what I'm working on right now?"

Something in the child's eyes lit up, as if the idea of an adult _wanting_ to pay some sort of active attention him was a welcome novelty. Seeing that spark in the child's eyes just made Gast smile more as he pulled out a file: Not _exactly_ what he was most focused on at the moment, but explaining genetic experimentation to a three-year-old who was technically being genetically experimented on seemed like a lot to take in. There was time for that later.

Instead, Gast scooped up Sephiroth and set him down on a stool, laying out the opened file before them. "Do you like science?" he asked curiously, wondering what kind of opinions the child was developing, growing up with such an unusual exposure to the lab setting.

Sephiroth shrugged noncommittally.

Not passionate ones, it seemed.

"Science is a beautiful thing, though it may not always seem that way," Gast said, sweeping his hands in a gesture around the room. "Science breeds wisdom, setting the stage for a better world each step of the way." Unsure if the blinking three-year-old was grasping his words, he rephrased leaning forward on the countertop and looking to the side to gauge the boy's reactions. "Science lets us know things. Knowing things lets us understand what happened in the past, what's happening in the present, and try to guess what might happen later on. We can try to make life better by knowing these things."

When a flicker of a smile twitched onto Sephiroth's small face, Gast felt a flood of warmth toward the boy.

"Do you like it?" Sephiroth echoed back.

"I think pursuing wisdom is one of the best things s person can do," he responded sincerely

"...This-"

"Ah, there he is." A cold, slippery voice cut through the conversation, stopping Sephiroth's words when they were still in his throat. Hunched in the doorway was a man with raven hair and a pasty complexion, made even more sallow by the stark white lab coat he donned. Tiny glasses rested on the tip of his nose.

"Professor Hojo," Gast acknowledged, still leaning forward on the countertop with his arms folded loosely in a prop.

"Is babysitting in the revised job description for department head?" The sneer in his voice led Gast to believe the comment was not looking out for his best interests, though it was hard to distinguish a sneer from Hojo's normal voice; regardless, Gast brushed it off.

"If only! Sephiroth and I were just talking. Do you require him?"

"I do," Hojo answered, though with a tone and expression more reminiscent of someone awaiting the return of their favorite movie rather than their son.

Nodding, Gast turned his attention from Hojo back to Sephiroth, lifting him off the stool and setting two small feet securely on the floor again. "Goodbye, Sephiroth. It was nice to talk to you."

"Bye," Sephiroth replied before Hojo snapped up his hand and began leading him out the door.

When the door had closed with a muffled _thump_, Gast's expression turned thoughtful again. So young, but growing up so fast...

Shaking his head, he closed the file on the counter, returned it to its slot, and pulled out The Jenova Project once again. There was plenty of work still to do before he could allow himself to go home, so he might as well get back to it.


End file.
